Shop floor management at all levels

At the invitation of the company Aenova, the Lean Management experience group from the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol met at their plant in Bad Aibling to identify potential for continuous improvement during a tour of the production facility, a so-called Gemba-Walk. The expertise of the participants, as lean specialists in their own companies, led to valuable insights.

SOCIAL AWARENESS IS IMPORTANT 

Aenova is one of the world's largest contract manufacturers in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. With a turnover of over 800 million euros, Aenova has been recognized as Germany's best pharmaceutical company in recent years. The company pays particular attention to its employees as human beings with their needs: for example, it has its own people trainers to support the training of occupational safety measures and the transfer of overtime to colleagues in need, to name just a few examples.

MULTILEVEL SHOP FLOOR MANAGEMENT

To make the performance of the plant in Bad Aibling visible to everyone involved, the most important key figures are physically displayed at defined locations. These so-called shop floor boards show the daily status in the categories SQDPC (Safety, Quality, Delivery, People, Cost). Employees from the various departments meet regularly at fixed times to discuss target achievement and possible corrective measures. During their tour, the members of the experience group praised the high level of implementation and reported on their own practice of making shop floor meetings interesting and productive.

Aenova Manufacturing System

Aenova has its own manufacturing system that includes group-wide standards for implementing lean management. A dedicated internal Lean Academy ensures that the relevant skills / competencies are taught. The plant in Bad Aibling is playing a pioneering role in implementing these standards. The participants were able to see measures to maintain cleanliness and order (through so-called 5S measures), the use of pull control in material supply (through so-called Kanban cards), or measures to reduce set-up times through SMED projects (Single Minute Exchange of Dies). Since improvements are possible even at a high level of lean implementation, the participants in the experience group were able to provide tips on keeping data up to date, using photos, arranging equipment or dealing with the causes of problems.

Prof. (FH) Dr. Martin Adam from the Master's program in ERP Systems & Business Process Management at the FH Kufstein Tirol and organizer of the experience group thanks everyone for coming and is already looking forward to the next meeting.